Cyberhetoric

Tracing & Erasing in Meedia Res

Thursday, April 21, 2011

Multipliteracies

As opposed to having a single or unified literacy, if there is such a thing, Researchgate is characterized by a plurality of literacies. Since the site is mainly considered with disciplines that exist on the periphery or are rather novel interdisciplinary approaches, the literacies are by their nature rather obscure. This however does not pose as much of an obstacle to the site as it might seem at first. Since, the site is one of few avenues for people engaged in these studies to be peer-reviewed or get feedback on their work, they are very open to helping people understand the vocabulary they are working with. Moreover, they are eager to get people on board because they want to generate discussion about their ideas in hope that they will either find someone who is likewise interested or that they will pique the interests of new people.

Researchgate thus is composed of a non-harmonious network of discourses. Rather than being an impediment, this website thus encourages reading a specific research encounter across multiple fields or methods for understanding the world. At the same time, I have also felt discouraged from entering certain groups dealing with highly speculative forms of science recently emerging since I realize that there would be a huge learning curve before I would actually benefit from reading it. The site however serves a different function than wiki, it's not meant to educate you on the most basic level of common information, but to spread information that exists on the margins.

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Researchgatekeepers

Researchgate.net is a predictably disappointing example of gendered hierarchies within knowledge production. While the prejudice is not as explicitly displayed as it may be in an actual academic environment, it is implicitly just as strong. I do not have actual numbers on the demographics, but just from my research alone there is an evident divide between disciplines in terms of gender.

The Natural Sciences are heavily dominated by elderly white males and young Indian males. Perhaps, this divide is not actual in terms of absolute numbers, it is however apparent, especially in terms of the members with a large amount of followers. The largest group of women are typically younger and more interested in contemporary critical theory.

This came as a surprise to me, since I thought that with an online site that provides mutual benefits for research collaboration would be more aimed at progressing science than sticking to traditional social mores or conventions. I asked my girlfriend about the gendered relations within the natural sciences. She has a unique point of view on the situation since her father teaches Astrophysics here at UT and she has been a student in both the Natural Sciences and the Humanities here. She sees much more of a prejudice within the Natural Sciences but nonetheless a very prevalent force within the humanities as well.

I have not seen any actual acts that I would see as explicitly sexist on the website, yet there is some intangible force which seems to prevent collaboration across genders. Thus, there hasn't been any need for management to intervene. Maybe management has intervened previously and driven out all of the obvious sexists, I'm not sure. Nonetheless, my experience indicates that social networking sites, rather than opening up new connections or modes of viewing research, has simply extended traditional biases.